Taliban Police in Nuristan Seek Reinforcements After Kamdesh Clashes

The Taliban police commander in Nuristan has asked the group’s authorities to send additional forces to the province following recent clashes in Kamdesh district. He said three platoons are needed for districts bordering Pakistan and one platoon for the other districts, and suggested that these forces be recruited from local residents.

Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Muzammil, the Taliban police commander in Nuristan, told a domestic media outlet in Kabul in remarks published on Friday, Oct. 2, that Pakistan had moved 300 to 400 young Afghans across the Durand Line into Nuristan to carry out attacks. He said the attackers were members of the Freedom Front and the Resistance Front, and most of them were former military personnel.

At the time, Pakistan’s information ministry had rejected the Taliban’s claim that Islamabad was involved in the Nuristan clashes. The Freedom Front claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Taliban police commander has also accused the Resistance Front of taking part in the fighting, in addition to that group. Contrary to the Taliban Defence Ministry’s claim, he did not accuse Islamic State of involvement in the attacks.

Muzammil said he had raised the request for more forces with Sirajuddin Haqqani, acting interior minister of the Taliban administration, and other officials of the group. He did not provide further details on the request. Nuristan has a total of nine districts, two of which border Pakistan; a police platoon in Afghanistan’s state structure usually has 80 to 120 personnel.

The Taliban Defence Ministry claimed on Oct. 7 that the Kamdesh clashes had ended with the killing of 41 armed opponents and the arrest of 61 others. The ministry did not give details of its own casualties, but Muzammil confirmed that a number of Taliban fighters had been wounded.

The Freedom Front has said it seized a number of Taliban outposts and inflicted heavy casualties on the group; the Taliban have rejected those claims. Muzammil also pointed to Nuristan’s strategic location, saying the war against Soviet forces and the republican government had also begun along routes beyond the Durand Line; he also claimed that Taliban armed opponents would not succeed because they lack public support.